I’m not sure how I missed this in the e-mail box, but I did, and in a way I’m glad I did, because it now has a great Vern opening.

You know I love you, bud. As always, Vern’s got something to say and I strongly urge you to pay attention:

Howdy boys,

I sent you guys this review several days ago and you never ran it, so I added this new paragraph to get your attention. Rocky Rocky Rocky, dragons, silver surfers, x-men, etc. As well as boobs and ass, boner boner boner, everybody has a boner, bodily fluids all over the place, geekgasm, etc.

Now to FREE LISL: FEAR AND LOATHING IN DENVER. I know, what kind of a name is Lisl, but I didn’t name her. This is the new documentary by Wayne Ewing, who did the great Hunter S. Thompson documentary BREAKFAST WITH HUNTER. It is his third Thompson-related movie, although with the good doctor’s passing each one gets more removed from the man himself. This one is not really about Thompson, but it’s about a cause he aligned himself with in his last years. Lisl Auman is a woman who, at the age of 21, was sentenced to life in prison for a murder everyone agreed she did not commit. She was actually handcuffed in the back of a police car while a dude she just met the day before, who had been helping her move, killed a police officer and then himself. Because she was an accomplice to his crime she was considered guilty of the murder.

That crime, according to the movie, was moving her belongings out of the apartment where she lived with an abusive boyfriend. A friend who was helping her move out decided to enlist two skinheads. These assholes stole some of the ex-boyfriend’s stereo equipment and basically took Lisl as a hostage in a stolen car – I’m sure about the time they were hauling down mountain roads and firing out the window at cops she knew these were not the best movers to be dealing with.

We hear the story from the point of view of Lisl and her parents. We see a rally on the capitol steps, where Thompson enlisted Warren Zevon to sing a song. We watch Lisl and her parents watch a video of the rally. The story of the case comes out suspensefully (sometimes frustratingly) in little bits. The movie shows how the media got the story wrong from day 1, portraying Lisl as the murderer’s girlfriend and repeating questionable allegations as if they were fact.

(for all the complaining we all do about cable news and what not, what about the local news? Is there any reason why anybody should ever watch that shit? If it’s important they don’t seem to have a clue. I do like their coverage of waterskiing squirrels, though.)

One convincing moment is when the movie shows media reports that Lisl had been uncooperative with the police and wouldn’t tell them if this dude had a gun or not. Then they show a file video of the actual police officer’s interview, where he explains that she did tell him he had a gun and described what it looked like so he would know what type it was. There’s also a scene where the murdered police officer’s widow tells the media that she’s not really sure if Lisl should be convicted or not. But she was.

Lisl seemed to get railroaded in court and on the news, and there she was rotting away in prison. Three years later she decided to write “that crazy bastard” Hunter S. Thompson to tell him she couldn’t get his books in the prison library. He was touched and immediately went to work at bringing attention to her case. Next thing you know there’s the rally with Warren Zevon, and for the first time the local news has to report that there are these people who think there is this other side to the story. A local
investigative journalist sees it, realizes how wrong her initial impressions of the case were, and begins months of in-depth coverage. And Thompson writes a story in Vanity Fair, both bringing national attention to the case and possibly endangering the cause with his over-the-top depiction of the events.

Although the movie is mostly about Lisl, Thompson explains that the cause is not about her at all. To him it’s about the fact that anybody could have the bad luck to end up in a situation like that and take the fall for something they had nothing to do with. He felt like this injustice had come to his attention so he had to do something, otherwise he would be an asshole. Thompson’s fierce sense of justice is as big a part of his appeal as his crazy drugged out stories, I think, and this movie pays tribute to that side of his personality.

Like Ewing’s last movie, WHEN I DIE, this one makes it clear that Thompson’s suicide was premeditated, not a spontaneous drug freakout. Without them really picking up on what was going on, he had advised his family on what to do about Lisl’s case after he wasn’t around. The Colorado Supreme Court reversed Lisl’s conviction only 2 weeks after Thompson’s death.

I like Ewing’s movies. He’s no Maysles brother but he’s a real documentarian. It’s all pretty straight forward, no fancy editing gimmicks or anything, he even uses some pretty cheap look fonts. My only real complaint about this one is that it’s hard to follow the news reports while also reading the scrolling text pointing out what was misleading in the reports.

No, on second thought, I also don’t like the title. I mean, this guy was buddies with Thompson so I can forgive him, but I hate how anything Thompson related has to be “Fear and Loathing in (whatever).” Or worse, things that aren’t Thompson related. It’s sort of demeaning the greatness of the fear and the loathing he found in Las Vegas and on the campaign trail. Let’s leave that phrase alone.

Other than that though it’s an interesting story, told pretty well. Turns out Ewing has a background in TV documentaries, which makes sense. He did shows for Bill Moyers, Frontline, etc. One thing I didn’t know about Ewing until reading a bio is that supposedly “In 1992, the feature film director Barry Levinson asked Ewing to design the photographic style of the dramatic series Homicide: Life On the Streets. Ewing’s handheld camerawork as Director of Photography brought a style of reality to drama that television critics have credited with changing the look of American dramatic television in the 1990’s.” Hell, if that’s true he changed more than the look of television, if you consider the influence Homicide had on later Spike Lee movies and newer guys like Paul Greengrass and the Mission Impossible 3 guy. Come to think of it some of you are going to hate Wayne Ewing now that I’ve pointed this out, he has indirectly made you nauseous. Please don’t blame him, his Thompson movies are not disorienting.

Even if you’re not interested in FREE LISL, I highly recommend BREAKFAST WITH HUNTER. Ewing followed Hunter around for quite some time, mostly during the period that the FEAR AND LOATHING movie was being made. There are lots of crazy scenes including a tense reunion with Ralph Steadman and a scene where Johnny Depp convinces Hunter to teach his bird how to talk. The opening scene has Hunter driving up to the Viper Room in a convertible flanked by Johnny Depp, John Cusack, and an inflatable sex doll. But the very best scene in the movie is in an incredible tour de force where Alex REPO MAN Cox and his co-writer Tod Davies visit Thompson to discuss their pre-Terry Gilliam adaptation of FEAR AND LOATHING. Thompson claims he hasn’t read the script but then immediately zeroes in on a problem with the way they condense the multiple Las Vegas trips in the book. He absolutely flips out over their plans to use animated versions of the book’s illustrations, and Cox mistakenly thinks he can smooth talk him into liking the idea. You can’t imagine how intense this scene is. Once he finally scares Cox and Davies away (Ewing says on the commentary he feared for their physical safety) Thompson calls the producer saying sympathetically, “Poor Alex Cox just left here in tears.” So if you ever wondered about the “creative differences” that caused Cox to leave the project, well, they are available on DVD.

Ewing’s second Thompson movie, WHEN I DIE, is good in a completely different way. It’s sort of the culture clash story of Johnny Depp’s Hollywood buddies arranging to fulfill Thompson’s wish to have his ashes fired out of a cannon mounted on top of a giant two-thumbed gonzo fist. So it’s not so much about Thompson as about the lack of him – you get to see the struggle a bunch of well-meaning people have doing something that only Thompson would’ve really known how to do correctly.

The pitcher hit the batter umpire wave’s him to…

sounds like torture porn to me!

by Ricky Henderson

seriously, i love me some HST, can’t wait to see this

Dec. 22, 2006, 1:59 p.m. CST

HST rules

by kinghenryVIII

Read one of his books of campaign trail early on in like 9th grade. barely understood it but revisited it later on and loved the the way he writes. It’s like you’re a buddy and are there with him. I will watch it – anything Raul is good to me. God bless ya Duke!

Dec. 22, 2006, 2:01 p.m. CST

Nice one Brother Vern

by reni

Thanks for the heads up. I got ‘When I die’ and ‘Breakfast with Hunter’. Damn, I miss that Sonofabitch. Happy Xmas Vern, lad.

Dec. 22, 2006, 2:16 p.m. CST

Followed this case

by idahomer

And it is a travesty of justice. I’ll watch it.

Dec. 22, 2006, 2:36 p.m. CST

Thanks Vern

by brycemonkey

I’ll see if I can track it down on DVD. Merry Christmas, everyone.

Dec. 22, 2006, 3:26 p.m. CST

Fear and Loathing

by TheyCallMeBruce

Clearly the potential for impact on revenue by the inclusion of the phrase in the movie’s title is a conscious thing, Thompson used it much more frequently than as applies to the Vegas book or the Campaign book. He expressed both his Fear and his Loathing at the Super Bowl, at the Watergate, and in Limbo. I’m sure he would have appropriated both for Lisl Auman’s situation.

Dec. 22, 2006, 3:52 p.m. CST

Fear and Loathing on the Talkback

by johnnyangelheart

Give it up, Vern, you can’t stop people from abusing ‘Fear and Loathing’. All great art eventually becomes cliche, that’s when we know it’s great art, when we’re sick of it. But nobody else could ever do Gonzo journalism except HST. Give him his props.

Dec. 22, 2006, 5:30 p.m. CST

Hunter S. Thompson is the MANNN

by Bean_

Cool to see him on the website, never heard of any of these movies though. Thanks, Vern!

Dec. 22, 2006, 5:47 p.m. CST

Should I tell him about the bats?

by Almost_Human

No, the poor bastard would find out soon enough.

Dec. 22, 2006, 6:35 p.m. CST

been a fan of HST

by Bloo

since this site started reporting on the F&LINLV movie…had to check it out adn then was so blown away started reading his stuff. Great work he put out and I remember parts of this case, living only about 3, 3 1/2 hours from Denver. Am very interested in this movie–Thanks Very for pointing it our way, this is way I love this site, points out movies, like this one that don’t always get noticied

Dec. 22, 2006, 9:45 p.m. CST

Another Quality Vern Review

by NC Blue

I gotta hand it to Vern, he always seems to talk about things in movies in a way that makes me really know whether I should see them or not. I never really followed what was happening with HST all that much, but I might just see if I can snag one of these docus to see what he was all about. Thanks, Vern. Oh, and you should seriously consider wide release for your Gingerdead Man review, unless that movie is an old one. THAT review was A++ high quality film writing for the ages.

Dec. 22, 2006, 9:48 p.m. CST

Let’s get down to brass tacks…

by Zarles

How much for the ape?

Dec. 22, 2006, 10 p.m. CST

Warren Zevon is the MANNN, too!

by Bob Cryptonight

All the good guys are dead.

Dec. 22, 2006, 10:13 p.m. CST

we’re friends with debbie, we used to romp with her

by triplefive

he agreed to let us in, provided we stand in the back, and did not smoke.

Dec. 23, 2006, 6:12 a.m. CST

Shit, you’ve gone completely sideways, man!

by Zarles

That would blast you right through the wall!

Dec. 23, 2006, 10:41 a.m. CST

Panic

by trafficguy2000

It crept up my spine like first rising vibes of an acid frenzy. There I was. Alone in Las Vegas, completely twisted on drugs, no cash, no story for the magazine, and on top of everything else, a gigantic god damned hotel bill to deal with. How would Horatio Alger handle this situation?

Dec. 23, 2006, 5:38 p.m. CST

“Why should I fuck with children”, he said,

by savage_henry

“They’re too small”

Dec. 23, 2006, 6:23 p.m. CST

Greatest opening line. Ever.

by shellfishh

We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold.

Dec. 27, 2006, 10:13 p.m. CST

Greatest opening line. Ever.

by brokenheadstuff

i thought you meant VERNS

Dec. 28, 2006, 11:50 a.m. CST

so the pope fucked a bear, no fault of mine

VERN has been reviewing movies since 1999 and is the author of the books SEAGALOGY: A STUDY OF THE ASS-KICKING FILMS OF STEVEN SEAGAL, YIPPEE KI-YAY MOVIEGOER!: WRITINGS ON BRUCE WILLIS, BADASS CINEMA AND OTHER IMPORTANT TOPICS and NIKETOWN: A NOVEL. His horror-action novel WORM ON A HOOK will arrive later this year.